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Turkey's New President Stresses Law, SecularismTurkey's new president, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, emphasized in his first speech after swearing-in ceremony Tuesday that he would make great efforts to solidify the state of law and abide by secularist principles of the republic.
Addressing law-makers immediately after taking presidential oath in the Grand National Assembly (Parliament) in the afternoon, Sezer, a reformist chief justice of the Constitutional Court, declared that Turkey should stop procedures resembling "police state" policies.
The judge-turned president said that a bright future for the country could only be established with full implementation of the norms and supremacy of the state's law, underlining the principle that no one and no establishment could be above the law. He said that supremacy of the law from top to toe, in all state mechanism, was necessary, adding that the greatest social catastrophe, if ever, would be the loss of trust in law and justice.
As president of the overwhelmingly Muslim-populated and constitutionally secular country, Sezer pledged to protect its secular system.
"The principle of secularism will be protected without any concession and with determination," Sezer announced, adding that secularism constitutes the cornerstone of democracy and that without secularism, there could be no freedom or democracy. He stressed that freedom of conscience and belief were guaranteed by the secular principles of the state. "State and society cannot be organized along the rules of religion," he said. Touching on the issue of foreign policy, the new president noted that the principles established decades ago by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Republic of Turkey, remain valid today.
Sezer went on to say that Turkey's accession to the European Union and the attainment of European standards in all areas, continue to be one of his prominent goals.
Aged 58, Sezer was elected Turkey's 10th president on May 3. He is the first ever head of state who does not come from either of the two power camps of Turkey, the Parliament or army ranks, in the country's 76-year history.
He took over the presidency from his 76-year-old predecessor, Suleyman Demirel, in a grand handing-over ceremony held at the Presidential Palace Tuesday evening.
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